Early birthday card

Thanks for my super cool birthday card family!

Matrimonial ads

The matrimonial section of the newspaper was one of the first things I came across when I arrived in Delhi.
At first I thought it was very funny, (the Love Important one is GREAT), then I felt a little outraged at the arranged marriage concept. After learning a little more about it, I feel a little less outraged.
The main factors taken into account when arranging a marriage are age, height, personal values and tastes, the backgrounds of their families (wealth, social standing) and their casts and the astrological compatibility of the couples' horoscopes.
A marriage in India is about the marrying of the families as well as the 2 individuals.
Normally the wife lives with the husbands family, which is another relevant reason why they need to get on with each other.
In India, 1.1% of marriages result in a divorce compared with over 45.8% for the USA. This is most likely because divorce is frowned upon, but that can't explain such an enormous difference.
Many young, westernised Indians would actually prefer their mothers to pick their wives.

My softening towards arranged marriage has come from the simple reason that having similar backgrounds and values makes life a little easier and the relationship a little less complicated - there are less contentious issues.
I think that if Dan and my parents were into arranging marriages , there's a good chance we would have landed up together anyway (except that Dan is a month and 5 days younger than me - yikes).

Wikipedia has some interesting points on the subject.

Mosquito decoy

I made fake blood for a shoot at work the other day.
After half an hour a mosquito got curious and came to check out the little droplets.
He hung around for about 15 minutes, tasting and checking out my concoction.
I don't know if this shows how tenacious the Indian mosquitoes are or how good I am at making fake blood...
...as long as they're not biting me!

My fake blood mixture consisted of:

Heiz Ketchup - no All Gold in India - boo
Marmite
Red and Blue food colouring
Honey

My Indian mosquito bites thus far: 47 in three months and counting.
I left the office window open for 1 hour as the AC wasn't working and we now have a colony living with us.
I use Peaceful Sleep everyday, but still, they bite me. A colleague reckons the Indian mosquitoes dig my repellent.

I love India

This place is a photographers dream.

I see at least 10 things every day that could make incredible photos (if I stopped to take them).

Here are some I did stop to take.

How to negotiate like an Indian

Negotiating in India is a necessity. I am VERY bad at it.
The people I deal with always leave smiling.
Hopefully these tips will be helpful.

Talent or exploitation?

The Four Year Old who Ran Forty Miles

I'd vote for exploitation.
And it turned out I'd be right.
Here's what happen next.

My first Hindi words

And according to Nusrat, the Hindi translation for 'Excuse me' is 'Hello!'

Indian Summer It's the beginning...

39 degrees in April. WTF!

HOW TO BEAT THE INDIAN HEAT (before it beats the crap out of you):

- Wear loose, light cottons
- Wear light colours
- Don't wear make up
- Always carry water
- Be all old school and carry a hankerchief
- Drink nimbu pani or coconut water or other cooling drinks

- Use a parasol... mmm, parasol, great word





- Abuse your AC (but always keep a big bowl of water in the room)
- Keep a spray bottle of water in the fridge, (this can double up as a cruel joke).
- Swim swim swim - most hotels have memberships for their pools.
I'm down with The Qutab Hotel.

- Wear a hat. Especially a stylin one like I bought for my brother at KM toilet.






- Go on holiday to one of these places
- Stay inside and play abusive games
- Stay inside and google Indian Summer

Sure, we can fit a couple more!

This is a tame example of the motorbikes in Delhi.

Panicker's Travel Company

Imagine... an Indian travel company tailored for people who panic(k)...
Tranquilizers, airbags on every seat, airplane vomit bags, itinerary where every minute of every day is organised, double flights are booked just in case, the guide is also a trained psychologist... Genius.
Unfortunately their site doesn't demonstrate such a cool sense of humour.

Be kind to animals

It's a good deed to feed pigeons and cows are sacred.

Weird right? And causing a truck load of issues in the cities. Cows randomly walk across streets, pigeons randomly live on my balcony and nest on top of my extractor fans.

The short version of why cows are sacred is:
Milk. Work (used for farming). Reincarnation (someone you knew could now be a cow). The Hindu God, Lord Shiva rides an Ox. At one point the cow asked the Gods to save the earth. A little bit of tradition and superstition. Here is the long version.
Here is an interesting article on the legal issues of 'cows and the city'.

When I searched how many pigeons there are in Delhi, this answer came up:
18 326 038
This can't be right as about a quarter of this live on my balcony.
Despite an hour wasted on Google, I still have no idea why it's a good deed to feed them.

Wildlife

Without thinking and probably just to make conversation, I asked someone if there was wildlife around Delhi. I really felt like an idiot after they stared at me long and hard until I realised the stupidity of my question. To my defense, most of these guys are pretty tame... except for the monkeys.
I borrowed the cow image as I didn't have one of my own.

Things I'll never get used to

I guess there had to come a point when I needed to complain.

1. Hooting.
There are 2 points to this complaint.
Firstly, here they call it horning and I just can't get used to saying: Stop horning. OR I can't bear all the horning. OR He horned at me.
The American guys working with Dan think it's hysterical that I call it Hooting coz hooters means a whole other thing...
I said: When I stopped at the robot, he hooted at me and I gave him a zap sign. This was met with a lot of confusion and laughter.
The second part of this complaint is that people 'horn' as freely as they breathe. The time it takes for people to start 'horning' when a traffic light turns green is approximately minus 10 seconds. Then you get 'horned' at to warn you they are driving past you, 'horned' at to let you know they have passed you, 'horned' at to say hi... I could go on. They're very very 'horny' round here.

2. Scooters.
When I first saw a man, his wife and their kid crammed onto a scooter I thought I'd seen it all. Then I realised that the wife had no helmet and was sitting side saddle. This was too much for me. Then I saw a man, his wife (side saddle no helmet), his 2 kids (one on the handle bars, no helmet) and his friend all on one scooter. I think there must still be a surprise for me around the corner, what about his parents and her sisters?!?

3. Visitors.
I'm so used to living my private Cape Town life where no one rings your doorbell unless you're expecting them to. Before I started working I would get summmoned out of my bed at 8 by the buzzing. It would begin with a cleaning lady looking for work, then a man who wants to put up blinds, then the guy collecting the trash, then a guy who wants to install gas, then the landlords driver with an extra piece of crappy furniture, then the guard asking for money and then and then and then.

4. Aaaaaayeeeeeee-aaaaaahhhhhh
Ok, there's this guy... I don't know what he's selling, but I'm sure it's nothing that I want. He begins his work day at about 7:15. He cycles past my apartment about 6 times an hour. How he lets everyone know he is there is by 'singing', loudly, in a very nasal voice this one word, which will haunt my dreams for the rest of my life: Aaaayeeeeee-aaaaahhhh.

5. Driving to Gurgaon. This fabulous place is where I work. Uglier and dustier than sin. Worst part is that it's an hour commute each way in heavy traffic. Only bonus about this is that I get a lift with a super entertaining and interesting guy.

Holi dance

3 guys with Indian style drums moved around the party all day creating little dance hubs.
Rocking.

I got to do some Indian circle dancing??? with a bunch of crazy, drunk, high on bhang people (most of whom had forgotten to do up their flies). (Obviously not referring to the people in the vid).

Barbie's coming to our place in her princess chopper.

Huge roof terrace + left over Holi paint = totally camp Helipad.

I wish you could smell this...!

1. A group of young Indian men on a Friday night smells similar to the perfume area in a British department store, but on steroids. Imagine a quarter of a bottle of aftershave per person and there's a group of 30. It's actually pretty refreshing after some of the other smells... see below.

2. The Nala... This is a shit river. Literally. It is an open air sewerage system, pretty common in Delhi. I walk/ drive over it on the way to the market every day. The smell feels like a very personal and insightful insult, or being slapped in the face with a porcupine and most of the spikes go up your nose.

3. The spice market: Cumin, saffron, tumeric, tamarind,cardamon, pepper, ginger, coriander, nutmeg, cinnamon, all in one sniff.

4. Meat market. This is not a smelling experience I can put into words. If you are ever in New Delhi, go to the INA market and find the meat section. Make sure you enter from the far side for full effect.

5. Car fumes. Delhi traffic is intense. It used to be so bad that they converted all public transport to CNG (compressed natural gas). This apparently improved the 'choking of Delhi', but it has not improved the 'choking of Casey'.

6. Masala tea. 3 times a day, I receive a mug of steaming masala tea on my desk. I don't ask for it, it's just assumed I want it (which I do). It's made from masala spices, full cream milk, normal tea and about 6 spoons of sugar. Mmmm... when's the next one coming

7. Arriving home to food. We recently hired a woman to cook and clean for us. After 2 months of take aways, opening the front door to home cooking is a knee weakening experience.

8. The sea. Ok, so there is no sea in Delhi, but there is a sea in Cape Town and at the moment, home sickness smells just like the ocean.

Name calling

click here for a site of creative name calling

My best are Bumloaf and Lumpmunch.
Here's what I think a Bumloaf would look like:

One of the best movies uploaded to youtube of all time

The Evolution of Dance

Cool iphone app

The iphone camera truely sucks.
It is saved by some interesting apps like Quadcamera and Camerabag.

?????????

Now, this is someone I would vote for... so youthful.